Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost

I picked this one up from Amazon when it was on promo and I am mighty glad I didn't pay full price for it. I feel awful enough for having paid $1.99. And the sample chapter did not allude to the awfulness of this book.

Catherine Crawfield is half-vampire/half-human. Her mom was attacked and raped by a fanged menace and after an abridged pregnancy, out popped Cat. Apparently, Cat has been atoning for her existence by hunting and killing vampires. She trolls area bars, snuggles up to vampires (she has a special sense about these things, plus the vampires have really pretty skin,  please excuse me while I vomit in my mouth), taking them for a ride (not like a super-sexy naked ride, although that is what the vamps think they are getting), and then staking them (not a nice way to treat your date). Anyway, on one of her vigilante missions, she tries to mack it to Bones (he is English, super-hot, likes to drink blood). Bones takes up Cat on her offer, kicks her ass, and then recruits her (Bones happens to be a vampire bounty hunter, yes a vampire hunting other vampires for money, some things don't change even if you stop breathing).  The rest of the book is about Cat learning how to fight, posing as bait for vampires, going to college, whining about having to wear extra-revealing clothes, blah blah, not-sexy sex, implausible fight scenes, noble sacrifice, The End.

Alright, so the story itself, not so new/interesting. That's fine, I don't need extra-special-shiny-new thing. But the writing? GODAWFUL. The flow is jerky, the dialogue is stilted and stiff, and the sex is boring, boring, and more boring. Cat is only an okay character; she's not totally offensive and she's not totally sympathetic. I spent a lot of the time annoyed at her but that may be due to the fact that she's 22 and acts like she's 7. Bones sounds kind of hot, but he's not a convincing character despite his semi-tragic history. 

I cannot understand how this series managed to make it to six books and spawn a spin-off series. I know Ms. Frost's writing has improved since this was published but sweet baby Jesus, why did people keep reading after this? I'm going to read the rest of the series because I have book-OCD (and my threshold for pain is clearly far too high) but if I had read this before the rest of the books were issued, I would have been happy to throw this one off of a cliff. Or into a fire. Or off of a cliff and into a fire.

Final Reckoning

Should you read this? GOD no. Save yourself.

Buy It . Borrow It . Skip It

Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost

Series: Night Huntress, Book 1

Next book in series: One Foot in the Grave

P.O.V.: First person, past; single narrator

Language: Salty

Sexxxoring: A few sexy scenes with semi-frank language